Definitely not required, but the compiler is general purpose and pretty conservative right now (I try and get it correct and then optimize) and uses a 16 bit temporary there to avoid guessing wrong when signed and unsigned values mix as it doesn't always fit when doing the math. You were + / - 1 so that's a specific case that should be optimized later in the pipeline, I will work on that.
I like your idea of INC(#) / DEC(#) for "in place" updates. And yup, I agree, the --/++ is a C thing, not BASIC. :)
Expression based CONSTs are supported but TILE_COLUMNS was a no arg accessor PROC. I've updated it (and some others) to be read-only scalars so you can use the initializer you mentioned (and a compiler error will happen when attempting to use a PROC in a const expr initializer).
thanks for the info... there's always more than 1 way to do things, no way is truly "right". :)
CELL_PUTC() is better to use if you aren't using all of the TILE api, but they end up with the same result on screen. CELL_PUTC() is a little more low level, but you have a little more control over things like color etc with the TILE version. You can do what you are doing with the SPRITE api as well (see the example\multi\sprite.cbs).
I imagine you are alternating something like this in a loop?
CELL_PUTC X, Y, CELL_CODE(ASC("A"))
CELL_PUTC X, Y, CELL_CODE(ASC(" "))
The next version will have some helpers that make that a little less verbose when you are using direct values like "A", etc and not calculating them.
CELL_PUTC X, Y, "A"
CELL_PUTC X, Y, " "
I did repro and fix the issue with held keys getting scanned (was picking up key repeats), so INKEY_CODE/RAWKEY_CODE will be as expected the next release (which will be soon).
And your issue with the warning, that's just about having to deal with a I16 tmp due to the unsigned and signed being done in a single statement. totally legit, the warning is just for performance. I did update the compiler to handle this better since it will be a common thing folks do.
this seems like a fun game! any chance you can share the .prg/.d64 so I can try it on my C64? I couldn't get the 1-4 keys to work in the browser version.
